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Are You A Muppet?
Are You A Muppet? is the third episode of ShapeTales. Plot In the first story, which is an adaptation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (In the styles of both Dr. Seuss and A. A. Milne), Alvin the Triangle lives in the city of Shoe-O-Loo, where everybody wears socks on their heads. Little Johnny Cylinder lives in Pot-De-Lot where everyone wears pans on their heads. Flibber-o-loo and Jibber-de-Lot fight by throwing pots and shoes at each other. Living the city, Alvin is attacked by bandits who rob and leave him upside down in a hole. Both the mayor of Shoe-O-Loo (Fear Cylinder) and a Shoebian doctor (Lovey Cylinder) come upon Alvin, but claim, in song, to be too busy to help. Soon after, Little Johnny comes along and helps Alvin out of the hole, despite the differences of their people. After seeing the kind act of a supposed enemy, the mayor decides that Shoe-O-Loo and Pot-De-Lot should no longer fight. Now, instead of fighting, the two cities throw flowers and candy to each other. In the second story (which parodies the 1960's tv series Star Trek), Little Johnny tells Dad that he is not going to invite a new kid, Fernando, to his birthday party because he thinks that this boy is weird. Jimmy and Alvin arrive in their small ship and take Little Johnny Cylinder to the Starship Pentagon, having discovered the ship is in the path of a giant meteor. Upon arriving, they discover that the power to the ship is out. While the ship's engineer (Scooter) frantically works to fix the ship's engines, Little Johnny suggests that two oddball crewmen (Jimmy and Jerry Cylinder) help save the ship when it is determined that the meteor is in fact a giant popcorn ball. Rocketed into space, the pair eat the meteor before it can collide with the ship. Little Johnny and the entire crew celebrate and then sing a song about the importance of friendship despite people's differences. Little Johnny, after being returned home by Jimmy and Alvin, tells his Dad that he has reconsidered and will invite Fernando to his party despite how different he is. Trivia *This is the first episode for several things: **The first appearance of The Circle, Scooter, Little Trixie, Lenny, their dad, Jimmy and Jerry Cylinder. **The first episode Roger Smith worked on. **The first to feature Jimmy and Alvin's current voices. **The first episode not to have "Circle" in the title. **The first episode to have high quality sound and audio, contrast to the previous two. **The first episode not to have Tom, Ma or Rosie Circle since their debut appearances. **The first episode to be made by Lyrick Studios in 1997. *This is also the last episode for several things: **The last appearance of Henry the Miner **The last episode to have two story segments until King Alan And The Giantesses. **The last classic ShapeTales episode to be released on DVD. *The inspiration for the shoes being on the citizens of Flibber-o-Loo's heads' was inspired by the 1985 film Brazil which features a group of women wearing hats with upside down shoes on them. Lovey's hat is the closest to resembling the ones shown in the film. *According to the DVD rom feature, the scripts for the two stories were written in 1994. *Some scenes on the "Shoe-O-Loo" segment were rendered in a different frame rate as stated by Mike and Phil. This was done with a process called "field rendering". *This is Pa Circle's second appearance on the show. Here, he was featured in The Combrush Song. *According to the 2002 "Silly Snow Day" product catalog, the DVD was originally planned to be released in 2003 but cancelled for reasons unknown (likely a result of Big World's bankruptcy). The commentary referring to Square of the Opera as an upcoming show hints that it was planned to be released in 2004 around the same time as the DVD releases for Circle Wants Me To Entertain Them!?!, QBT Alvin! and the Green One-Eyed Monster from Underwater! and QBT Alvin and the Gruesome Robot before being shelved once more until it's eventual release in 2006. *Jimmy and Jerry can breathe in space, despite not wearing any helmets. *The audio for recent releases are different than in the original. This includes the classic Star Trek door opening SFX being omitted. *Mike Vischer stated on the DVD commentary that the scene where the spaceship comes out of the USS Pentagon to take Little Johnny back home after the song "I can be your friend" was so hard to render that he ended up working out all the kinks himself until it could render properly. *According to the audio commentary on Jimmy Neutron and the Giant Robot, Mike Vischer has stated that the space environment, along with the desert environment, was the easiest environment to create at the time. *The verse was actually Leviticus 19:18b, which they dropped out the part about revenge despite not stating it. *The table, despite losing one leg, still stands. *Jimmy said that Jibber-de-lot would look down at the shoe people, but the towns are actually the same height. *Play-Doh is a modeling compound used by young children for arts and craft. It's pretty much a child's version of molding clay. *Jell-O is a trademark of Kraft Foods for varieties of gelatin. *"The Story of Shoe-o-Loo" would be used at the end of A Doddle's Tale. *There's a later episode where they spoof Star Trek. Goofs *In the original version of the scene after Jerry turns the power back, the whole entire ship lights up. However the next scene with Scooter, the lights were still dimmed prior to the power being turned on. This was somewhat fixed when the story was repackaged for Circle Made You Special, where they adjusted the brightness. *In the original Word Entertainment print of this episode (the version widely sold at Christian bookstores before the more well-known mass market Lyrick tapes came about), there was animation error that was fixed later on. During the "Love Your Muppet" song, after Little Johnny finishes the first verse, the other three gather in to sing a vocal-only segment; this was originally much more roughly animated, with Alvin popping into view on the right before starting to walk in and the other two rushing in to make it in time for the verse to start. The reprint altered this so it was a bit more clean-looking, and this change stuck for every release after. *There are a few instances where the characters' pupils clip through their eyelids. These include: **Little Johnny when he gets started by Jimmy and Alvin. **Jimmy when his eyes are in closeup. *In the scene where Jimmy and Alvin take Little Johnny back home in the second segment, you'll notice the shadow of the spaceship is stuck on the wall near the window before heading out the window. *One shot shows Jerry clipping through his seat. *One shot shows Jerry without his headset, and he has it in the next shot. *During the end of the second segment, when Jimmy and Alvin come back to Little Johnny for directions for the freeway, the lights on the spaceship don't light up on Little Johnny's face. Category:ShapeTales